Up All Night (6 page)

Not that she was about to start with
the memory trip. Not after what she’d just experienced with Marco. James was
then, Marco was now. And if what she’d just enjoyed was anything to go by, she
was in for a pretty amazing journey into the pleasurable world of sex with a
generous partner tomorrow night.

She could hardly wait.

Chapter Four

Beth had expected Marco would take
her for a drink or a meal before they eventually hit the sheets, but as they
pulled up alongside the club on
Brighton
’s
seafront, she swallowed. “You have to be joking.”

Marco turned off the ignition and
glanced up at the Salsa Dance Club sign that had caught Beth’s attention.
“After last night, I get the impression you like trying new things. Thought
it’d give us an appetite.”

Her face heated, and she caught her
bottom lip between her teeth. “I thought we agreed not to mention that again
tonight.”

“Can’t help it. It’s in my head now.
Hard to push it away.”

“Well then,” Beth glanced at the
sign again. “This is hardly going to help, is it?”

He simply grinned and placed his arm
along the back of her seat. “I’ve booked a table in the restaurant for after
class.” Lightly, he touched her neck. “So we can refuel.”

Beth felt the effect of the simple
touch right to the tips of her breasts. “I’m hardly dressed for it.” She spared
a glance down at her ancient navy shift dress. It was tight over the hips and ended
two inches above the knee.

His gaze slipped pointedly to her
exposed thighs. “You look pretty good to me.”

“I’m not going to be able to do much
in a dress this tight. You need to be able to move around, don’t you?”

He shrugged. “No idea. Never done
this before. We had some promotional leaflets left at the bar and I thought it
might be fun. Come on. Let’s try it out.”

Resigned, Beth was half way out the
passenger door when he arrived at her side, offering his hand to help her out. She
took a moment to wonder if his mother had instilled in him some old-fashioned
Italian values. She liked it. Very much.

“I have two left feet,” she declared
as he guided her to the entrance of the club, one hand firmly on her lower
back. “Don’t blame me if I step on your toes.”

He leaned close as they walked so
that only she could hear him. “Step on my toes all you like. It means you’re up
close to me and that’s my plan for the evening.”

A shiver ran through her, both at
his words and the way his hand increased the pressure at her back. Determined.
Possessive. She liked that, too. It should have scared her, made her uncertain,
suspicious. But it didn’t do any of those things.

“What level?” the man on reception
asked as they came into the foyer. “Beginner, intermediate, advanced?”

Marco drew out his credit card.
“Beginners.” He looked down at Beth. “We’re just feeling our way right now.”

The shiver increased to a full blown
tremor as Marco’s free hand pressed into the small of her back. To distract
herself, she watched the man deal with Marco’s card before handing it back to
him. Suddenly, she wasn’t sure of anything. She’d thought they’d have sex
tonight, but she hadn’t considered all the things that led up to it. The small
talk, the conversation, the mere fact of being in a crowd of so many people.
Hell. She was way out of her depth. Now she had to spend the major portion of
the evening making a fool of herself trying to dance, not to mention being
pressed up to Marco for hours with their clothes on. She’d hoped they could get
back to her place pretty soon, get naked, have sex, then he’d be on his way and
she could go on hers. This was turning into an event. A full out date, for
crying out loud.

In a kind of daze she let Marco
guide her into a small room where about a dozen couples mingled on the dance
floor.

“Evening, everyone.” A man in his
late fifties smiled out from a bright blue sequined suit. “Welcome to Couples
Sexy Salsa Night.”

 
Beside her, Marco slipped his arm around her
waist. “And you were worried you were underdressed.”

Still contemplating the
couples
and
sexy
parts of the announcement, Beth suppressed a giggle as she
elbowed Marco in the ribs and the man continued his spiel.

“The lovely Penny will be assisting
me tonight and together we’ll make sure you learn the basics so you can
continue to salsa sexily in private when you get home.”

Beth wanted to roll her eyes at the
laughter and guffaws that greeted this, but Marco’s possessive arm around her
waist and the way his fingers moved up and down on her hip sent a warm feeling
all the way to her toes.

“Salsa is danced at a fast tempo,”
the sequined man continued. “It uses a quick-quick-slow rhythm. The hold is
sometimes referred to as a break step. There are four beats…”

Oh shit. Beth cringed. She was lost
already. Fast. Slow. Break. Beats. This was heading towards being a total
disaster. She hoped to heaven Marco wasn’t expecting her to be able to
do
this.

“Let’s begin by counting out the
beats. Take your partner’s hand.”

As Marco’s arm slipped from her
waist and his hand reached for hers, Beth felt her pulse kick. He had such big
hands. What was it they said about men with big hands? Hell. Don’t go there.

“Begin. One, two, three. Beat. Five,
six, seven. Good. Again.”

After a few of those, Beth started
to feel a little better. She forgot the beat a couple of times, but Marco’s
supportive hand squeeze and the smile he gave her made her feel less clunky. He
forgot it once, but she was sure he only did it to make her feel better.

“Okay.” The instructor called, “and
faster.”

The music sped up and Beth did a
sort of on the spot shuffle before she managed to get her feet into gear. Since
most of the couples around were laughing as they got it wrong, too, Beth
relaxed and soon got into the rhythm.

Marco didn’t seem to put a foot
wrong. “You’ve done this before,” she accused, grinning up at him.

“I’ve hit the dance floor a few
times. Having fun?”

She was. By the time they mastered
the first basic turn, Beth had laughed so much she’d forgotten her initial
nerves. She learned that perhaps she wasn’t such a klutz after all and was in
fact feeling like she could actually look straight ahead instead of down at her
feet.

“Good.” The instructor—whose name
she couldn’t remember—called out to the group in general. “Keep that rhythm
going.”

“That’s the plan,” Marco muttered as
the hand on Beth’s back pressed her a little too close to his hips than the
dance required. “Doesn’t seem to be much wrong with our rhythm.”

It didn’t take a genius to decipher
the meaning behind his words, but if she had been in any doubt the dark flash
of sexual promise in his eyes would have been confirmation enough. “Are you
sure you haven’t done this before? You seem surprisingly good for a beginner.”

“It’s in the hips.” He waited for
the beat. “I’ve always had good hip control.”

Damn. Her knees almost caved and
heat spread delectably between her legs. If she hadn’t been holding on to him,
she might have melted onto the ballroom floor.

Oh hell. He was so amazingly sexy
with all that dark hair and those tempting chocolate eyes that seemed to focus
effortlessly on her alone, despite the bevy of hot and more appropriately
dressed women amongst their fellow dancers. How could she resist him? And
damned if she would. She hadn’t had sex for the best part of eighteen months,
and there’d never be a better time to break her fast. Not when she had a hot,
extremely willing male ready to service her like there was no tomorrow.

“Good hip control?” She looked up at
him from beneath her lowered eyelashes. “I imagine that comes in handy now and
again.”

His nostrils flared a little, then
he grinned. “You’re welcome to test it out any time you like. Sooner would be
better than later.”

She let her smile take a while to
get where it was going, aiming for seductive. It seemed to work, because he
gave a low hum in his throat. She missed the beat step again and stepped on his
toe. “Sorry.” She giggled when he took the opportunity to pull her close
against him, and she felt his erection press against her. “While I see what you
mean about having good hip control, the evidence points to you not having much
control anywhere else.”

He held her so tight against him,
she was barely able to shuffle her feet along to the music, so she did a sort
of hop from foot to foot massaging his erection against her stomach. The
movement was obviously not a good idea, because Marco hissed in a breath. “You
trying to kill me?”

“You’re the one holding me so tight
I can’t move.” Beth glanced at the instructor who was making his way toward
them. “We’re about to get told off, or even worse, expelled from class.”

“It’s couples sexy salsa, right? I’d
say a hard-on is par for the course.”

She laughed again, but sobered when
the instructor reached them and eased them apart to correct their dance
posture. She couldn’t look at Marco because she could imagine him waggling his
eyebrows or throwing her that sexy grin that would only start her off again.

For the rest of the session, Beth
tried to be a model student, chastising Marco who kept trying to pull her
closer.

By the time the class ended, Beth
was so hot for him she was ready to head for home, and bed. But Marco led her
upstairs to the restaurant.

During the meal, most of the nerves
that had dissipated while they’d been moving and laughing on the dance floor
re-emerged. He was attentive, humorous, and very keen to make sure she was
having a good time—so what was there to be nervous about?

Only the fact he was over six feet
of strapping male, sexy as sin, and was currently looking at her as if he could
manage one more calorie-free course on top of the three courses they had
already indulged in.

Problem was, an eighteen-month
hiatus didn’t do much for a girl’s confidence. All very well having phone sex,
but in the flesh?

“Having second thoughts?” Marco’s
low voice came across to her amid the muffled chatter of the crowded
restaurant.

How had he picked up that she was
close to bottling on her resolve to put an end to that hiatus? Was she being
that
obvious? “It’s been a long gap
between…” she circled her hand in the air “…and after last night, I’m a bit
edgy.”

“I meant about indulging in that
dessert.”

She looked into his eyes, saw the
mischief there. “No you didn’t.” She laughed when he did. “You really enjoy
back-footing me, don’t you?”

“Didn’t have to work too hard during
salsa. You kept losing your concentration.”

“Because you kept pushing your
raging erection into my stomach.”

His eyes darkened. “I’m looking
forward to pushing it somewhere else entirely.”

“Shh.” Beth glanced around the
nearby tables, relieved to find nobody seemed to have heard them. “When was the
last time you had sex?”

Marco kept his eyes on hers as he
picked up his coffee. He sipped still watching her, then put the cup down. “Not
sure that’s a fair question, seeing as you’ve just told me it’s been a while
for you. Whatever I say will make me sound like a fornicating womanizer.”

Beth picked up her own cup, hoping
to appear nonchalant when in fact she was desperate to know. “I revealed, so
you reveal.”

He shrugged. “Last week.”

Well, she’d asked. What had she expected?
Her stomach became alive with butterflies. “Right.”

“You’re not going to get all prissy
on me are you?”

“No.”

“Good. Because from the sounds you
were making on the phone last night, you seem to like sex well enough. Just
because you’ve been in a slump doesn’t mean you can’t get back in the saddle
and enjoy the ride again.”

Since he’d used the very same phrase
she’d used herself, Beth took it as a good omen. She squirmed in her seat,
aware that the subject matter was making her nervous for an entirely different
reason. “Can we talk about something else?”

“Like what?”

She looked over at him with a steady
gaze as her mind seemed to settle and her hormones raced. Why was she making
this so hard on herself? She’d made up her mind she was going to have sex with
Marco. She’d barely been able to think of anything else all day. So what was
she waiting for?

“Like, can we pay the bill and get
out of here.” Since she’d already slipped off her shoes, Beth kept her gaze
locked on his as she slowly skimmed her foot up the inside of his leg. “I think
it’s time to end my slump.”

With a feral gleam in his eyes,
Marco called for the check.